Internet Scofflaw

In the typical manner of modern liberalism, Laurie David, the producer of environmental agitprop An Inconvenient Truth, is not so concerned about the environment when it comes to her own property. (Via Instapundit.)

PJ O’Rourke explains why the love affair with cars is over; they’re just too important now:

Cars didn’t shape our existence; cars let us escape with our lives. We’re way the heck out here in Valley Bottom Heights and Trout Antler Estates because we were at war with the cities. We fought rotten public schools, idiot municipal bureaucracies, corrupt political machines, rampant criminality and the pointy-headed busybodies. Cars gave us our dragoons and hussars, lent us speed and mobility, let us scout the terrain and probe the enemy’s lines. And thanks to our cars, when we lost the cities we weren’t forced to surrender, we were able to retreat.

(Via Instapundit.)

Truer words were never spoken.

The White House is starting to recognize that there might be a problem with Sonia Sotomayor’s contention that Latina women make better judges. (Via Instapundit.)

The President and his spokesman both admitted that Sotomayor spoke poorly when she said “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” However, both said that her statement was taken out of context. The problem with that contention is Sotomayor’s statement was not an isolated one. It’s from her peroration in an entire speech dedicated to the impact of race and gender on judging. This was basically the thesis of the entire speech.

The bottom line is, this is exactly what the president said he wanted, a justice whose life experience gave her “empathy.” The problem is she expressed it in too direct a fashion, making it clear how ugly the idea is.

The right tack for Republicans to take is not to try to block Sotomayor’s appointment. They can’t do it anyway. Also, who’s to say that the next nomination would be better? Rather, as Glenn Reynolds suggested on PJM Political, the Republicans should use this as a teaching moment. They should open a debate on whether justice should be guided by race and gender, or whether perhaps impartial justice might be better. That’s a debate that Republicans can win, and start to correct the misapprehension that many Americans have of this administration.

With a professor of constitutional law as president, one might have hoped for better than this. On the blog of the special counsel to the president for ethics and government reform, he indicates that the White House will restrict the manner in which citizens can petition their government:

Section 3 of the Memorandum required all oral communications between federally registered lobbyists and government officials concerning Recovery Act policy to be disclosed on the Internet; barred registered lobbyists from having oral communications with government officials about specific Recovery Act projects or applications and instead required those communications to be in writing; and also required those written communications to be posted on the Internet. . .

Following OMB’s review, the Administration has decided to make a number of changes to the rules that we think make them even tougher on special interests and more focused on merits-based decision making.

First, we will expand the restriction on oral communications to cover all persons, not just federally registered lobbyists. For the first time, we will reach contacts not only by registered lobbyists but also by unregistered ones, as well as anyone else exerting influence on the process.

(Emphasis mine.) (Via Mark Tapscott, via Instapundit.)

Apparently, the White House intends to prohibit citizens from speaking to their government about the stimulus bill. Let’s never hear any more nonsense about the left and its concern for civil liberties.

ASIDE: It’s telling that an administration with very little regard for transparency (other than lip service galore) would suddenly see the light when the spectre of public comment rears its ugly head.

Beyond restricting the manner of public comment, the White House also wishes to restrict its content:

Second, we will focus the restriction on oral communications to target the scenario where concerns about merit-based decision-making are greatest –after competitive grant applications are submitted and before awards are made. Once such applications are on file, the competition should be strictly on the merits. To that end, comments (unless initiated by an agency official) must be in writing and will be posted on the Internet for every American to see.

(Emphasis mine.) Who could argue with limiting public discourse to the merits? Well, there’s the question of who determines merit in public discourse. The White House, presumably. But beyond that, the Constitution authorizes no such restriction anyway. If I want to criticize a project on some worthless grounds like astrology or numerology, that’s my right.

The best that can be said about this is their means (posting comments publicly) is unlikely to achieve their ends (restricting discourse). But look out for their future means.

(CREDIT: Title borrowed from ShopFloor.)

UPDATE (7/26): The policy has been reversed. (Via Instapundit.)

Australia may be backing away from nationwide internet censorship:

THE Rudd Government has indicated that it may back away from its mandatory internet filtering plan.

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy today told a Senate estimates committee that the filtering scheme could be implemented by a voluntary industry code.

Senator Conroy’s statement is a departure from the internet filtering policy Labor took into the October 2007 election to make it mandatory for ISPs to block offensive and illegal content.

Responding to questions from shadow communications minister Nick Minchin on how the government may go about imposing the internet filtering scheme, Senator Conroy said that legislation may not be required and ISPs may adopt an industry consensus to block restricted content on a voluntary basis.

(Via Slashdot, via Instapundit.)

I sure hope so.  We’ve already seen the system used to suppress political content.

(Previous post.)

Out of the three people frequently considered to be on President Obama’s short list (Sotomayor, Diane Wood, and the formidable Elena Kagan), it’s interesting that Obama chose by far the least talented. It’s also interesting how open he was about the paramount role played by biography in that decision. And if there’s any doubt what he was getting at with all the biography talk, Sotomayor has made it explicit.

Last week Arthur Laffer had a column on the ease for wealthy individuals to move to escape excessive state taxation. Today’s there’s a coda to that column. After Maryland instituted a millionaires’ tax their millionaires are disappearing:

Maryland couldn’t balance its budget last year, so the state tried to close the shortfall by fleecing the wealthy. Politicians in Annapolis created a millionaire tax bracket, raising the top marginal income-tax rate to 6.25%. And because cities such as Baltimore and Bethesda also impose income taxes, the state-local tax rate can go as high as 9.45%. Governor Martin O’Malley, a dedicated class warrior, declared that these richest 0.3% of filers were “willing and able to pay their fair share.” The Baltimore Sun predicted the rich would “grin and bear it.”

One year later, nobody’s grinning. One-third of the millionaires have disappeared from Maryland tax rolls. . . On those missing returns, the government collects 6.25% of nothing. Instead of the state coffers gaining the extra $106 million the politicians predicted, millionaires paid $100 million less in taxes than they did last year — even at higher rates. . .

No doubt the majority of that loss in millionaire filings results from the recession. . . The Maryland state revenue office says it’s “way too early” to tell how many millionaires moved out of the state when the tax rates rose. But no one disputes that some rich filers did leave. It’s easier than the redistributionists think. Christopher Summers, president of the Maryland Public Policy Institute, notes: “Marylanders with high incomes typically own second homes in tax friendlier states like Florida, Delaware, South Carolina and Virginia. So it’s easy for them to change their residency.”

Fox News reports:

President Obama has asked for an internal investigation of a photo-op featuring the presidential jet that sent thousands of New Yorkers running for their lives — and sent officials in Washington, D.C., running for political cover.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Tuesday Obama was “furious” when he heard about the incident and has ordered a deputy chief of staff of find out “why that decision was made and to ensure that it never happens again.”

Perhaps the White House’s decision to change the White House military office director from a career military position to a political appointment might have played a role?

In a statement that can only be described as bizarre, President Obama claims that our fiscal problems are the result of our failure to establish universal health care:

Well, we are out of money now. We are operating in deep deficits, not caused by any decisions we’ve made on health care so far. This is a consequence of the crisis that we’ve seen and in fact our failure to make some good decisions on health care over the last several decades.

(Via Instapundit.)

In the real world, massive entitlement programs cost the government money. In the Obama world, apparently they somehow save money.

Last week’s pair of national-security speeches from President Obama and former Vice-President Cheney amounted to something of a debate. Like the Lincoln-Douglas debates, the participants spoke at length on a single topic, and did so back-to-back. With modern technology, a joint appearance was not necessary for the press to cover both speeches as a single event.

Since Cheney’s speech was scheduled first, and then the president decided to schedule his at the exact same time, the White House must have thought that a debate served their purposes. Perhaps that’s because he had the advantage of staging (setting his own speech at the national archives) and knew that the press would edit his remarks more favorably than Cheney’s. Nevertheless, the president seems to be losing the debate.

A new Rasmussen poll, out today (via Instapundit), indicates that the public disagree with the president decision to close the Guantanamo prison by a 49-38 margin, and disagree with the president’s contention that the prison has damaged national security by a 51-25 margin.  By a 57-28 margin the public opposes moving the Guantanamo detainees to US prisons. The poll didn’t ask about releasing them in the United States (as proposed by the Attorney General), but given these numbers it seems safe to assume that public opinion would be overwhelmingly against it.

Support for the president’s position has been steadily eroding since Inauguration Day. In January 42% supported keeping the prison open. The number has risen to 46% in April, and then to 49% today. Meanwhile, the number who believe the prison will “very likely” be closed has dropped to 15%, down from 49% last November.

I’m delighted to see a real debate take place in American politics. The events that we call “debates” with their two-minute statements are truly shabby affairs, designed for sound bites rather than substance. In a real debate, the strength of the case is paramount. I wish this would happen more often.

POSTSCRIPT: In a related item, another poll seems to show “the more Dick Cheney talks, the more Americans seem to like him.”  (Via Instapundit.)

(Previous post.)

Charles Krauthammer puts the president’s speech at the national archives in a nutshell:

Well, Obama really didn’t really want to give this speech. He had to. I mean, he wasn’t elected to be a national security president. He is a domestic president, and that’s his agenda.

But his hand was forced because there was an open rebellion in Congress over the Guantanamo issue. The senators wanted a decision, and he gave them an essay. The senators wanted a president, and he gave them a professor.

What he did was he outlined the five categories of prisoners in Guantanamo, an interesting exercise that you would expect out of a graduate student, in which you have got those who can be tried in regular courts and those who have to be in military tribunals, and those that will not be taken by allies, as if any allies are taking them, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, a freshman in college could tell you that.

And then he says the fifth category, those whom you cannot try, either because the crimes are committed but the evidence is tainted, or because they have not yet committed a crime but they sure as hell will if released, there are those whom you cannot try and you cannot release. And then he says, “And that’s the really difficult issue.”

No kidding. I mean, who would have thought that was the problem about these prisoners? Of course everybody knows that.

So what was his answer? He doesn’t have an answer. What he says is he is going to work with Congress and work out a framework of detaining these people.

I think that’s right. We’ve frequently seen polls say that the public likes President Obama much more than his policies. This was an effort by the president to paste an extra measure of his personal popularity onto a policy no one wants.

Plus, Peter Wehner notices the hypocrisy of the president’s choice of venue:

I couldn’t help but notice that during his speech yesterday, President Obama spoke in reverential terms about the Constitution. Yet when it comes to his own judicial philosophy — and, I expect, to his Supreme Court nominee — the Constitution will be viewed with a great deal less veneration. It will be seen as a “living” document, one that has no fixed meaning and can be reinterpreted for any reason at all, with new rights being manufactured out of thin air and rights enumerated in the Constitution conveniently ignored.

You knew this was coming.

In the wake of the Chrysler-UAW deal, investors are becoming reluctant to lend to heavily unionized firms.

Arthur Laffer (yes, that Laffer) takes a look at capital mobility and state taxes.  His results should be no surprise:

Here’s the problem for states that want to pry more money out of the wallets of rich people. It never works because people, investment capital and businesses are mobile: They can leave tax-unfriendly states and move to tax-friendly states.

And the evidence that we discovered in our new study for the American Legislative Exchange Council, “Rich States, Poor States,” published in March, shows that Americans are more sensitive to high taxes than ever before. The tax differential between low-tax and high-tax states is widening, meaning that a relocation from high-tax California or Ohio, to no-income tax Texas or Tennessee, is all the more financially profitable both in terms of lower tax bills and more job opportunities.

Updating some research from Richard Vedder of Ohio University, we found that from 1998 to 2007, more than 1,100 people every day including Sundays and holidays moved from the nine highest income-tax states such as California, New Jersey, New York and Ohio and relocated mostly to the nine tax-haven states with no income tax, including Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire and Texas. We also found that over these same years the no-income tax states created 89% more jobs and had 32% faster personal income growth than their high-tax counterparts.

Did the greater prosperity in low-tax states happen by chance? Is it coincidence that the two highest tax-rate states in the nation, California and New York, have the biggest fiscal holes to repair? No. Dozens of academic studies — old and new — have found clear and irrefutable statistical evidence that high state and local taxes repel jobs and businesses.

(Via Instapundit.)

And not just by a little either.

Wow. Whenever you think you’ve heard it all, you’re wrong:

Beverly Anderson is mad as hell. She just started to get tickets for parking in her own driveway. That’s right. The District of Columbia is ticketing people who park their cars in their own driveways. . .

What does the law say?

“Any area between the property line and the building restriction line shall be considered as private property set aside and treated as public space under the care and maintenance of the property owner.”

Basically what that means is most property owners in the District don’t own the land between their front door and the sidewalk, but they are responsible for taking care of it. It’s why you can get a ticket for drinking beer on your front porch in the Nation’s Capital. You’re technically on public space. It’s also why the city can ticket you for parking in your own driveway if you don’t pull your car deep enough into the driveway beyond the façade of your house or building.

To be clear, we’re not talking about people who park in shallow driveways and let the rear of their cars block the sidewalk. The cars are off the road, off the sidewalk and in the driveway – just not far enough back for the city. . .

When Anderson complained to a supervisor at DPW she was told that she could lease the property from the District and avoid future tickets.

The District of Columbia wants to lease people their own driveways. This is what happens when a government has no fear of its constituents.

Megan McArdle tells it like it is:

So what about California? A reader asks. Ummm, that’s a tough one. No, wait, it’s not: California is completely, totally, irreparably hosed. And not a little garden hose. More like this. Their outflow is bigger than their inflow. You can blame Republicans who won’t pass a budget, or Democrats who spend every single cent of tax money that comes in during the booms, borrow some more, and then act all surprised when revenues, in a totally unprecedented, inexplicable, and unforeseaable chain of events, fall during a recession. You can blame the initiative process, and the uneducated voters who try to vote themselves rich by picking their own pockets. Whoever is to blame, the state was bound to go broke one day, and hey, today’s that day!

California must be allowed to suffer the consequences of its bizarre irresponsibility and go bankrupt. If the federal government bails out California it will be beginning of the end of our federal system. California will become a subsidiary of the federal government, and in return will obtain a massive subsidy from the responsible and only-moderately-irresponsible states.

Worse, once California has shown that there’s no need to manage your own budget, other states will surely follow the same path, and ultimately be taken over as well.  The precedent will be set that states effectively can exchange local control for a massive federal subsidy.  In time, independent state government will be just too expensive for all but the reddest of red states.

UPDATE: Rasmussen finds that the public opposes a California bailout by a 59-24 margin.  That means it can’t happen, right?  Oh.  (Via Instapundit.)

Government rhetoric:

We’ve become accustomed to our economic dominance in the world, forgetting that it wasn’t reckless deals and get-rich-quick schemes that got us there; but hard work and smart ideas -quality products and wise investments. So we started taking shortcuts. We started living on credit, instead of building up savings.

President Obama, ASU commencement address

Government policy:

Credit cards have long been a very good deal for people who pay their bills on time and in full. Even as card companies imposed punitive fees and penalties on those late with their payments, the best customers racked up cash-back rewards, frequent-flier miles and other perks in recent years.

Now Congress is moving to limit the penalties on riskier borrowers, who have become a prime source of billions of dollars in fee revenue for the industry. And to make up for lost income, the card companies are going after those people with sterling credit.

Banks are expected to look at reviving annual fees, curtailing cash-back and other rewards programs and charging interest immediately on a purchase instead of allowing a grace period of weeks, according to bank officials and trade groups.

“It will be a different business,” said Edward L. Yingling, the chief executive of the American Bankers Association, which has been lobbying Congress for more lenient legislation on behalf of the nation’s biggest banks. “Those that manage their credit well will in some degree subsidize those that have credit problems.”

(Via Hot Air.)

It’s a basic principle that anyone (even a politician) should be able to understand that you get more of whatever you subsidize.

UPDATE: The bill passed the House 361-64, so I suppose this has to be considered bipartisan foolishness.

UPDATE: Yingling also made this key point, quoted by the Washington Post but not the NYT:

“This bill fundamentally changes the entire business model of credit cards by restricting the ability to price credit for risk,” said Edward L. Yingling, the chief executive of the American Bankers Association. He said that lending would become more risky and that, “It is a fundamental rule of lending that an increase in risk means that less credit will be available and that the credit that is available will often have a higher interest rate.”

The Wall Street Journal reports:

Britain’s parliamentary expense scandal claimed its biggest casualty on Tuesday when the speaker of the House of Commons, Michael Martin, announced his resignation after politicians broke centuries of protocol and demanded he step down.

Mr. Martin, who has become a symbol of politician’s attempts to stop details of their expense claims being made public, made a short statement to the House of Parliament Tuesday afternoon announcing he will resign on 21 June. . .

On Monday, Mr. Martin — who as speaker heads the body that administers Parliament and has responsibility for politicians’ expenses — had dug to hold on to the post, even as MPs from all political parties called for his resignation. . .

Mr. Martin’s resignation marks the first time that a speaker has been forced from office since 1695; the role dates back to the 13th century. But allies of the speaker said that politicians were making him a scapegoat for a scandal that they are all involved in. . .

Mr. Martin’s near nine-year rule as speaker has been controversial for many years. Mr. Martin, who as speaker also acts as a moderator in House of Commons debates, was accused of showing bias towards MPs of his former party, the Labour Party, in debate. This year Mr. Martin hit the headlines after allowing police in to search the Common’s office of Conservative immigration spokesman Damian Green, who was accused of leaking information.

But it was his attempts to keep expense information out of the public domain that have led to his recent troubles. Mr. Martin even took the case to the U.K.’s high court in a bid to stop details coming out.

After earlier saying that questioning President Obama’s growth forecasts was wrong (indeed, somehow “evil”), Paul Krugman finally admits that a trampoline recovery is unlikely.

(Via Greg Mankiw, via the Right Coast.)

Well, I guess we didn’t really need a secret bunker for the Vice-President:

Vice President Joe Biden, well-known for his verbal gaffes, may have finally outdone himself, divulging potentially classified information meant to save the life of a sitting vice president.

According to a report, while recently attending the Gridiron Club dinner in Washington, an annual event where powerful politicians and media elite get a chance to cozy up to one another, Biden told his dinnermates about the existence of a secret bunker under the old U.S. Naval Observatory, which is now the home of the vice president.

The bunker is believed to be the secure, undisclosed location former Vice President Dick Cheney remained under protection in secret after the 9/11 attacks.

The small justice to be found here is that this time Biden is only endangering himself.  Of course, it won’t stay that way for long.  No doubt they’ll soon be breaking ground on a new secret bunker, at significant cost.  Perhaps Biden’s spin should be that this is his contribution to the stimulus effort.

I’ll bet the President wishes he could keep Biden in a secure, undisclosed location.

UPDATE: A Biden aide is denying the story, saying it’s just a room, not a secret bunker. But Eleanor Clift’s story was quite explicit.  We’ll see what she says now.

(Via Volokh.) (Previous post.)

History professor Peter Baldwin has a piece on the similarities between America and Europe.  One interesting bit, quoted by Reason (via Instapundit), observes:

Income is more disproportionately distributed in the US than in Western Europe. In 1998, for example, the richest 1 per cent of Americans took home 14 per cent of total income, while in Sweden the figure was only about 6 per cent. Wealth concentration is another matter, however. The richest 1 per cent of Americans owned about 21 per cent of all wealth in 2000. Some European nations have higher concentrations than that. In Sweden-despite that nation’s egalitarian reputation-the figure is 21 per cent, exactly the same as for the Americans. And if we take account of the massive moving of wealth offshore and off-book permitted by Sweden’s tax authorities, the richest 1 per cent of Swedes are proportionately twice as well off as their American peers.

I think this underscores the fact that America is the nation of new money, while Europe (or Sweden at least) is about old money.  In America, the land of opportunity, an entrepreneur can start a business that makes his or her fortune, and literally millions do.  Opportunity leads to income inequality, because most people (due to lesser talent or inclination) will not become entrepreneurs.  In Europe, great wealth tends to be inherited to a much greater extent.  You can see this in the numbers above; how else can you get wealth inequality without income inequality?

What this illustrates is that income equality shouldn’t even be a goal. All income equality does is keep people from becoming rich.  It bars the gates to affluence.  Instead, the goal ought to be freedom, to place no obstacles in front of any person’s right to realize his or her potential. Naturally, some people will become rich.  That’s a good thing.

POSTSCRIPT: Yes, I realize that by using Baldwin’s numbers to highlight a difference rather than a similarity I am missing his point.

President Obama’s military tribunals are the same as President Bush’s. That’s a good thing.  (Via Instapundit.)

UPDATE: Andy McCarthy explains further.

The Economist is continuing to discover that it backed the wrong candidate.  In its latest issue, they lament President Obama’s decision to intervene in the Chrysler bankruptcy:

The collapse of Detroit’s giants is a tragedy, affecting tens of thousands of current and former workers. But the best way to offer them support is directly, not by gerrymandering the rules. The investors in these firms are easily portrayed as vultures, but many are entrusted with the savings of ordinary people, and in any case all have a legal claim that entitles them to due process. In a crisis it is easy to put politics first, but if lenders fear their rights will be abused, other firms will find it more expensive to borrow, especially if they have unionised workforces that are seen to be friendly with the government.

It may be too late for Chrysler’s secured creditors and if GM’s lenders cannot reach a voluntary agreement, they may face a similar fate. That would establish a terrible precedent. Bankruptcy exists to sort legal claims on assets. If it becomes a tool of social policy, who will then lend to struggling firms in which the government has a political interest?

and his effort to crack down on business taxes:

No one doubts that America’s corporate-tax system is a Byzantine mess of high statutory rates and oodles of exemptions. But much of that complexity is caused by the divergence between America’s system of taxing its firms (and citizens) on their worldwide income and the territorial system used by most other countries. Mr Obama’s proposals, particularly his partial reversal of firms’ ability to defer taxes, would add yet more complexity. Nor is there much evidence that they would boost domestic job creation, as the administration claims. In fact, by raising the tax bills of American firms and putting them at a disadvantage beside their foreign peers, Mr Obama’s tax changes may reduce domestic job creation and even induce companies to move offshore.

In truth this plan is less an economic downpayment than a political one. Mr Obama needs more tax revenue, and corporate America’s foreign profits are an appealing pot of cash.

It seems that President Obama’s fiscal policies are modeled after his personal finances:

A close examination of their finances shows that the Obamas were living off lines of credit along with other income for several years until 2005, when Obama’s book royalties came through and Michelle received her 260% pay raise at the University of Chicago. This was also the year Obama started serving in the U.S. Senate. . .

In April 1999, they purchased a Chicago condo and obtained a mortgage for $159,250. In May 1999, they took out a line of credit for $20,750. Then, in 2002, they refinanced the condo with a $210,000 mortgage, which means they took out about $50,000 in equity. Finally, in 2004, they took out another line of credit for $100,000 on top of the mortgage.

Tax returns for 2004 reveal $14,395 in mortgage deductions. If we assume an effective interest rate of 6%, then they owed about $240,000 on a home they purchased for about $159,250.  This means they spent perhaps $80,000 beyond their income from 1999 to 2004. . .

The Obama family apparently had little or no savings during this period since there was virtually no taxable interest shown on their tax returns.

In 2003, they reported almost $24,000 in child care expenses and, in 2004, about $23,000. They also paid about $3,400 in household employment taxes each year. And as Michelle stated, they spent $10,000 a year on “extracurriculars” for the children.

These numbers clearly show the Obamas were living beyond their means and they might have suffered financially during the decline in housing prices had they relied on taking ever larger amounts of equity from their home to pay the bills.

But in 2005, Obama’s book sales soared and the royalties poured in. Michelle explained, “It was like Jack and his magic beans.”

Without those magic beans, the Obama family would have eventually suffered the consequences of too much debt.

It seems that the president is relying on magic beans to do the same for our country as they did his family.

BONUS: In light of Mr. Obama’s reliance on magic beans to save his finances, James Taranto sees some chutzpah in Obama’s ASU commencement address:

We’ve become accustomed to our economic dominance in the world, forgetting that it wasn’t reckless deals and get-rich-quick schemes that got us where we are, but hard work and smart ideas–quality products and wise investments. We started taking shortcuts. We started living on credit, instead of building up savings.

(Via Instapundit.)

Having been definitively contradicted by the CIA, Pelosi is now accusing the CIA of lying. This is very much the pot calling the kettle black, since we now know that Pelosi was indeed told about waterboarding, despite her claims to the contrary. She’s clearly hoping that by counterattacking she’ll be able to distract the press from her own lies.

(Previous post.)

UPDATE: On Pelosi’s press conference, Charles Krauthammer comments:

Well, her news conference today was an utter disaster. She was nervous. She was shifty. Her syntax was incomprehensible. And there were times when she had had to refer to her original statement because she couldn’t remember what the current truth — her current truth was.

It reminds me of a line in a Graham Greene novel in which a spy says “I prefer to tell the truth. It’s easier to memorize.” Well, she didn’t have it memorized. You had a sense that if you’d attached a lie detector to her in that news conference, it would have short circuited.

Look, her problem was this. She was internally contradictory with one point. Within 30 seconds she contradicted her own statement on what she had heard from her staff in February ’03. She was contradicted by the evidence of others like Porter Goss.

Her charge of the CIA lying to her is utterly implausible. Why would it lie to her and tell all the others the truth? It makes no sense at all.

UPDATE: Steny Hoyer won’t back Pelosi’s allegations.

UPDATE: Leon Panetta backs the CIA:

Panetta, President Obama’s pick to run the clandestine agency and President Clinton’s former chief of staff, wrote in a memo to CIA employees Friday that “CIA officers briefed truthfully on the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, describing ‘the enhanced techniques that had been employed,’” according to CIA records.

(Via Instapundit.) (Previous post.)

UPDATE: The WSJ comments:

On the merits, it seems highly implausible that the CIA would have lied to Mrs. Pelosi. Briefings are attended by more than one agency official, and a legislative liaison typically writes up a summary memo describing significant exchanges. Agency careerists hardly loved the Bush Administration after the Iraq WMD fiasco, and the controversy over “torture” has raged for years. If the CIA had misled Congress on a matter that was so politicized, surely someone in the agency would have leaked it long before now, if only to deflect blame onto the unpopular (and soon to depart) Republicans.

Mrs. Pelosi is now caught in a humiliation of her own design that will only escalate if she insists on an interrogation “truth commission.” To adapt a famous phrase, we’re not sure her reputation can handle the truth.

This Washington Post chart, showing that our national fiscal outlook is either terrible (if you believe the White House) or appalling (if you believe the CBO), has been popular throughout the blogosphere:

Last March, the OMB director insisted that his estimate was better than the CBO estimate.  But now, the OMB concedes that the CBO estimate was right, at least for this year, and next year is creeping up toward the CBO estimate as well:

This week, the Obama administration revised its own budget estimates and raised the projected deficit for this year to a record $1.84 trillion, up 5 percent from the February estimate. The revision for the 2010 fiscal year estimated the deficit at $1.26 trillion, up 7.4 percent from the February figure.

(Via Instapundit.)